Urban Institute: UI has announced several new releases from Dec. 2-14, 2009. Reports are usually in .pdf format. Older new releases can be found by clicking on “next page” at the top right side of the page.

In this paper we characterize the topology of global multinational networks and examine the macro and micro patterns of multinational activity. We construct indices of network density at both pairwise industry and establishment level and measure agglomeration in a global and continuous metric space. These indices exhibit distinct advantages compared to traditional measures of agglomeration including the independence on the level of geographic aggregation. Estimating the indices using a new worldwide establishment dataset, we investigate both the significance and causes of multinational firm co-agglomeration. In contrast to the conventional emphasis of the literature on the role of input-output linkages, we assess the effect of various agglomeration economies. We find that, relative to counterfactuals, multinationals with greater factor-market externalities, knowledge spillovers, and vertical linkages exhibit significant co-agglomeration. The importance of these factors differs across headquarters, subsidiary, and employment networks, but knowledge spillovers and capital-market externalities, two traditionally under-emphasized forces, exert consistently strong effects. Within each macro network, there is a large heterogeneity across subsidiaries. Subsidiaries with greater size and higher productivity attract significantly more agglomeration than their counterfactuals and become the hubs of the network.

University of Wisconsin Data and Information Service Center Country Statistical Yearbook Update. Our Country Statistical Yearbook page has added links to several yearbooks. Note: check carefully to see if the link is to a hypertext or .pdf yearbook, or information about a print one, as well as the language of the yearbook. Our Country Statistical Yearbook page now points to compendia for 131 countries.

B. “Mapping Population and Climate Change” (2009). “Climate change impacts, demographic trends and reproductive health needs are likely to affect countries abilities to adapt to climate change, demonstrates a new world map from Population Action International (PAI). The map highlights the potential impacts of climate change on people and the environment, projected population changes in the short- and long-term, and why responses to climate change should include family planning and reproductive health.” The site is an interactive world map allowing the user to choose multiple variables and regions.

This study is informed by competing perspectives on family behaviour in periods of turbulent social change, and intends to provide some fresh insights into the effect of macro-level changes on micro-level processes involving the family. In this pilot study, we take our first step towards analysing the impact of developing urban-industrial life on the family system in the northern German city of Rostock. A variety of quantitative approaches are employed to capture long-term changes in household structure and composition, household formation rules and patterns of leaving home in this historic Hanseatic community in two census years, 1819 and 1867. Overall, we can observe rather stable patterns for both the 1819 and 1867 censuses, with only small shifts away from more “traditional” towards more “modern” patterns of the family. Interestingly, the persistence of the family pattern in Rostock rested primarily on the continuity of nuclear family-centred patterns of co-residence. We were neither able to find evidence of a significant deterioration in the traditional pattern of the extended-family household, nor could we prove that a progressive nuclearisation of the family in Rostock took place between 1819 and 1867.

US House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health Hearing Testimony: “Prescription Drug Price Inflation: Are Prices Rising Too Fast?” a hearing held December 8, 2009 (.pdf and Window Media Player format).